Primary healthcare workers are living in fear in the troubled Mqhekezweni village in the notorious Bhityi policing area where residents live under siege from people who rob, rape and even murder them.
Mthatha residents have demanded that the police top brass abandon their blue-light convoys and walk the streets of their crime-plagued town.Speaking to police minister Bheki Cele and national police commissioner General Fannie Masemola, who visited the area on Wednesday, they said: “Leave your blue lights, VIP security and walk the streets. Drugs are being sold openly in some streets in town in broad daylight.“Mthatha is no longer safe.”
Just over a year after his wife passed away, senior AbaThembu traditional leader Nkosi Dumisani Zanenqaba Mgudlwa, King Buyelekhaya Zwelibanzi Dalindyebo’s close relative and confidante, is happily in love and ready to walk down the aisle again.
Police minister Bheki Cele has cast aspersions on Eastern Cape detectives working to solve murders in Mthatha and surrounding villages, saying: “I looked at a long list of murders and attempted murders and a long list of zero arrests.”
To avoid royal succession battles, AbaThembu senior traditional leader Nkosi Mfundo Bhovulengwe Mtirara publicly pronounced his four-year-old son as his successor during his wedding celebrations at the weekend. Guests at the three-day royal wedding witnessed the union of Mtirara, 50, head of AbaThembu of Matyengqina, and AmaHegebe’s Princess Buyiselwa Holomisa, 44, now known as Nkosikazi Nobandla Mtirara.